{"id":678,"date":"2021-10-10T09:15:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T17:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=678"},"modified":"2021-12-18T14:25:21","modified_gmt":"2021-12-18T23:25:21","slug":"a-tale-of-two-roses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/?p=678","title":{"rendered":"A tale of two roses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The story of a rose: In the summer of 1983 I signed up to read to blind folks in Anchorage. I met a lovely old lady named Omega, who lived in a trailer south of town, and did not actually want anyone to read to her. What she wanted was company, so for several years I rode my bike over to her house once a week and sat and talked about whatever she wanted. At one point in our friendship, I remarked on the gorgeous red rose in her front yard. She beckoned me to her opposite window and pointed to a bare, thorny stalk about three feet high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a daughter plant,\u201d she said. \u201cIt sent a runner under the trailer and came up right there. If you want it, you can dig it up and take it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thanked her profusely, and some years later, my husband and I did just that. We carried it from Anchorage to Craig in a large pot in the back of our pickup truck. In the summer of 1989, we planted it on our new lot, and since then it has flourished, blooming like mad and sending up many new baby plants. As I have written before, when my mother died in October 1994, I carried one of these little roses to Virginia on my lap and planted it at the cemetery. It struggled with the hot climate for seven years, put up a single bloom on Mother\u2019s Day of 2001, and quietly expired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The story of another rose: In the summer of 1995, we went to southeastern Colorado (desert country) for my husband\u2019s grandparents\u2019 anniversary. While we were there, Grandpa Hutchie wore his oxygen mask and his cowboy hat with equal aplomb, and took my boys, aged 6 and 3, for rides on the four-wheeler. He died about a month after a we left. While we were there, I remarked on the rambling, prolific yellow rose in the front yard. With the grandparents\u2019 permission, we potted up a small daughter plant and took it back to our yard in Southeast Alaska, where the poor thing complained gently about all the rain until it effectively drowned. Recent research with my husband and mother-in-law has led us to the conclusion that it was a Harison’s rose (yes, one r), cultivated in New York in the 1820’s, and taken west by pioneers. My husband\u2019s cousin has a daughter plant in another part of Colorado, but the original rose is long gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I would love to have a rose of sentimental value in the Virginia family cemetery, close by the graves of my aunt, parents, and baby brother. Harison’s roses are drought resistant, and my husband has located a company that sells them. . .stay tuned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More things to read:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosa ‘Harison’s Yellow’ – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosa rugosa – Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story of a rose: In the summer of 1983 I signed up to read to blind folks in Anchorage. I met a lovely old lady named Omega, who lived in a trailer south of town, and did not actually want anyone to read to her. What she wanted was company, so for several years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159],"tags":[354,191,353,192],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-powhatan-to-alaska","tag-harisons-rose","tag-mothers-day","tag-roses","tag-sitka-rose"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rightasrainonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}